Chaos and free will...

Discussion in 'General Philosophy' started by =SputniK-CL=, Sep 27, 2003.

  1. Mystech Adult Supervision Required Registered Senior Member

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    Even if free will is nothing but an illusion and we are all slaves to some sort of fate or predestined outcome, I still think life is worth living just because I, for one, sure as hell don't know what the hell comes next, and am interested to find out. Besides things seem to make sense in a pretty logical cause and effect sort of way and that makes the illusion all the more satisfyingly realistic.
     
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  3. %BlueSoulRobot% Copyright! Copyright!! Registered Senior Member

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    Imagine:
    "I am sitting on the ledge of a window in a room on the 20th floor of a hotel, reflecting on the world situation. This becomes so depressing I can see no point in continuing to live and decide to jump. Once I am clear of the building there is little meaning to the statement "I am free," for now I can will to be back on the window sill but cannot get there. I am now subject to the same law as any other falling object, external forces compelling me just like any other object. In certain situations, therefore, I am as completely subject to external forces and my conduct as predictable as that of any other object in the world.
    Hence, by definition, I am not free."

    Makes you wonder where the dividing line between free will and causalty lies. Are you free, or were you ever free to begin with?

    As well... ever wonder why humans are the only ones capable of this free will? Or, if they're not, why they are allowed to believe/disbelieve they have free will?
     
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  5. Cyperium I'm always me Valued Senior Member

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    You can only be free if you have choices, being a subject of external forces doesn't make free will meaningless, you still have a will even though you can't implement it.

    Another thing that arises is why someone would want to take suicide, if we don't have free will then why would we have the option to end our own life? Isn't it a matter of survival?

    If we don't have free will then we are just a complicated reaction that were bound to happen exactly as it happened. Then what created the universe from the beginning is also responsible for creating the computer you use right now, it is also responsible for creating every word you type, every thought you think.

    However, there has to be a beginning where the effect cannot rely on a cause, there has to be a source of ultimate free will. As the rest of creation unfolds why wouldn't that "spark" of free will follow as a necessary buildingpart of everything. What's smallest is also the most important (the smallest part is the foundation of everything, everything else must be buildt upon something).

    If we think about string theory then there has to be something that "plays the strings", some kind of harmony that set everything into motion.

    The philosophers of the ancient greeks thought of a idea world, that the reality we see are merely shadows of the idea world.
    Not a single circle in reality is perfect, no line is perfectly straight, but in the idea world there exist a idea of the perfect circle and the perfect line.
    The idea world, to them, was the real reality.

    If we borrow their idea of the idea-world then we can say that everything we can experiance must exist in it's perfect form in the idea-world. To make sense of this we have to realize that there is certain classes of ideas.

    1: WE HAVE A IDEA OF EVERYTHING
    2: WE HAVE A IDEA OF STRUCTURE / LOGIC
    3: WE HAVE A IDEA OF LIFE
    4: We have the idea of creatures
    5: We have the idea of a human
    6: We have the idea of a infant
    6: We have the idea of a child
    6: We have the idea of a teenager
    6: We have the idea of a adult
    6: We have the idea of a elderly
    4: We have the idea of feelings
    5: We have the idea of love
    5: We have the idea of anger
    5: We have the idea of
    4: We have the idea of experiances
    5: We have the idea of sight
    6: We have the idea of patterns
    6: We have the idea of forms
    6: We have the idea of colour (the idea of, red, purple, white)
    5: We have the idea of hearing
    6: We have the idea of volume
    6: We have the idea of frequency


    I hope you get what I mean, there are classes and to every class are sub-classes which belongs to it's class.

    Free will is in the class of experiances, sub-classes are choice, longing etc.

    So we can say that santa exists in the idea world, but as fantasy, everything else that belongs to the same class as santa exists there too, and everything that belongs to the same class as fantasy.

    Free will is the class of experiance and so must have it's perfect form there.

    I feel that free will must exist in some way, even though it might be a illusion, it may still be a imperfect imitation of the perfect form of free will.

    Free will exist because we experiance it, how can something that exist not exist? Should we doubt seeing and hearing also? Cause that's also a imitation.
     
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  7. %BlueSoulRobot% Copyright! Copyright!! Registered Senior Member

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    What choices do you have when you're plummeting 20 stories to the ground? As said, no matter how much you will yourself back onto the ledge, you cannot get there. You are completely under the law of gravity. Your only "choice" is death, because it's the only destination on your now narrow path. Sure, you can pray wildly for a pair of wings, but nothing you do (thought or action) can prevent your "kissing the concrete", so to say. What is free will, if there are no paths existent to demonstrate it?
     
  8. Cyperium I'm always me Valued Senior Member

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    Everything starts as a idea, we can have the idea of doing something and have full free will to shape the idea, that we can't follow the idea doesn't mean that we didn't have the free will to create it.
     

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